Page 2 of Hearts Etched in Glass
She was the fire in my bones, driving me to become a better person and now that she is lifeless, what am I to do? I peer up to find Kenneth angrily shouting at me, I can feel my soul draining from my body as my fingers reach out for Tilly. I allow the shock to take over. The skin around my face is taught and sticky from the tears I have shed. A firm grip wraps around the back of my shirt. Kenneth is now dragging me from behind, further away from my beloved. Though I have a gaping wound where my heart was torn from; something deep and sinister crawls out from the crevice, forcing me to snap.
I don’t think. I react.
Swiftly, I turn back. Closing my knuckles into a chisel-fist and throat punch my eldest brother, Kenneth. He stumbles back, wide eyed and angry, but I cannot hear him as he splutters through ragged breaths. Looking around like a crazed animal. The next person I see is Baba. She is still standing beside Tilly, her hands perched atop her Loki decorated cane. Then she nods, and my gaze follows the direction of hers to Marcus, standing ten paces away from me. His eyes are red, nostrils flared and arms out wide like a pleading compass, beckoning me.
He takes one slow, careful, and deliberate step towards me as I flinch like cornered prey.
Then he hesitantly reaches out his right arm, a slight tremble accompanying his movements.
After several moments of suspended time, I clasp his hand within mine and allow him to lead me from the room.
Away from the love of my life.
The inside of Marcus’s Crossley is an omniscient void, encased in silence.
When we arrive at his town home, I can barely remember how I got out of the vehicle and into the sitting room.
I stare down at the ornate rug, silently grieving. Reminding myself to intermittently draw breath, for my heart wishes to cease breathing. My lungs are on fire, nerves shattered alongside my world. The seat pan on the leather couch dips beside me as a body sits.
Marcus.
For several soundless minutes, we sit side-by-side, elbows perched atop our thighs. I glance at him and recognize I am not alone in my sorrow. He attempts to give my thigh a supportive squeeze, appearing sympathetic and strong. Marcus may be here to encourage me, but in the end he is struggling as much as I am.
I spiral even further into the dark abyss and turmoil. My body lunges toward Marcus, encircling my arms around his torso and sobbing into his lap. I can feel his large hand splay across my shoulder blades as he attempts to soothe me.
“I loved her so much and now she is fucking gone.Why? Why Marcus?” The sounds of myvoice are slightly muffled, when every ounce of my being yells into his lap.
“I know. I loved her too,” Marcus mutters. I feel the pressure of him lean in, as he kisses the side of my head. Then I feel the weight of his body collapse atop me, shaking with racked sobs. He is doing his best to provide some sort of comfort, as the weight of my world comes crumbling down around me.
Chapter 2: Bobby
The Drug in Me is You (reimagined),Falling in Reverse
Several months later.
I heat the needle with the small canister fire atop my side table.
The room is dark. A pitch-black void. Like my soul.
I just want these goddamn feelings to evacuate my system, but instead I have to bleed them out or drug them over.
Cleaning the perfect patch of skin on my forearm, I can feel the anticipation build as I readymyself for the prick of the needle, but then the door opens to my room.
After thinking she was dead, then coming to terms with it in a dark and depressing path of self-destruction, it still stuns me to see her full of life before me.
My gorgeous Tilly.
Melancholy paints her beautiful face as she peers down at my arm then back up to meet my eyes. Tears well within her gaze as she slowly approaches, like I’m some animal she doesn’t want to frighten.
She doesn’t make a sound, just glides over to me in her long, white pleated skirt. The fabric shines from the moonlit window, the only thing aglow other than the sinister flame beside me.
She could pass for an angel.
As she slides down to the floor at my feet, I brace myself for the shame that creeps down my spine. She gracefully drapes her arm over my knees and props her chin atop her forearm.
We stare at one another.
Suspended in time.
